forty
Sulim had never seen the Temple so active in the middle of the night.
While Shield Town could have an active nightlife, curfew in the fortress was at midnight for most mercenaries, and the population was small enough that most places closed by then.
It’s even final call at the brothels. Come on.
And it wasn’t like people made a point of hanging around the Temple when they were done drinking, gambling, and wooing. Nobody was that self-aware on Cerilyn.
So, why were all of the lights on downstairs? Why was the front entrance unlocked? Why were there so many strangers hanging around the chapel, having intense discussions in Julah?
Nobody noticed that Sulim and Sonall entered. They were too busy animatedly saying something to an older gentleman with a cane, who spat back whatever to their faces.
“Are we going to die?” Sonall quipped with his deadpan charm. “It’s us versus like four julah in here.”
He had astutely included Mira, who was half-hidden behind the altar as she fussed with her mother’s statue. I didn’t even notice her. And Sulim usually made a point of hunting down her girlfriend wherever they were in town, because when one was the most beautiful woman around, why wouldn’t she?
Well, that and because she prided herself on always knowing what went down in “her” town. The fact she didn’t recognize this man who was still wagging his finger at the two younger julah women while Kema called him an unsavory word in their language was distracting.
“Let’s just say if we were on a mission, I’d have gotten us killed by now,” she muttered.
“You’re distracted by the beautiful women, too?”
“You’d love for us to have that in common.”
“I’m just saying.” Sonall’s hand waved before his face as he gestured toward the argument in the middle of the aisle. “That’s a babe right there.”
Sulim dramatically sighed as she stepped forward. “Please keep it in your pants.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I hate it when he says that. Sulim was not a ma’am, and he damn well knew that.
The trio of julah stopped their argument once they realized that two mercenaries stood in their midst.
It was a good thing that Kema and Hannu recognized them already, because Sulim saw how this could quickly go south—there was a reason nobody on Cerilyn accepted contracts to mess with a julah, and it was because they didn’t have instant-death wishes.
Don’t assume any julah you see is untalented.
Unless they were on Yahzen, there was a good chance that person had teleported to wherever they were, and that was enough to broadcast not to mess with them.
“What are you doing here?” Mira jogged over from the altar, her hair loose and hanging in front of her face. She was still dressed in her Temple clothes, despite it being the middle of the night. “Has something happened?”
Sulim gestured to the man between them. “Care to introduce us? Because we did not intend to walk in on the battle of the sexes.”
Kema blushed in embarrassment and turned around. Hannu kept her mouth shut, but did not look away. Mira was the one to speak.
“This is—”
The man situated his cane before his legs and bowed his head in greeting. “I am Ramaron Marlow, Head of House Marlow. I am here at Mira’s request.” He glanced at the women beside him. “I suppose my presence makes others uncomfortable.”
Kema said something in Julah that Sulim did not understand.
“All right,” Mira interrupted. “That’s enough. What is bringing the both of you here in the middle of the night?”
Sulim held her girlfriend’s gaze, realizing that there had never been a moment between them that felt less romantic than this.
“What if I told you that the two of us had a pretty crazy dream?”
Mira’s brow hooked on her forehead. “At the same time?”
“I dunno. Is that how visions of the High Priestess work?”
Mira approached, grabbing them by the arms. Before either could protest, Sulim realized that they had teleported up to Mira’s apartment on the second floor.
“You both better start explaining,” she said, glancing between both Sulim and her partner. “Look, I trust you, but there is some crazy shit going on right now, and way too many people are receiving visits from my mother in their sleep.”
Sulim sucked the air through her teeth. Oh, no…
That wasn’t the response Mira expected. “What?”
Sonall stepped forward toward her. “Your mother?”
“I misspoke!” Mira responded a little too earnestly. “You know. Kinda like how she’s… all of our mother…”
She’s terrible at this. Sulim matched her partner’s stance and told him, “Mira is the daughter of the former High Priest and the High Priestess.”
“I’m sorry, you said that in my bad ear. You always do that.”
“What are you doing?” Mira mouthed at her girlfriend.
“Look, if he’s getting personal visions of your mother telling him to do things, I think it’s fine for him to learn that you’re sort of the child of the biggest celebrity couple in history.”
Sonall steadied himself against Sulim, but it was a front to turn her around and bring her closer to him. As they walked away from Mira, he hissed, “She’s the daughter of Nerilis Dunsman? Fucking Nerilis Dunsman. The maniac destroying planets out there?”
Sulim tersely nodded. “She’s going by her mother’s name. Nobody’s supposed to know.”
“Oh, sure, sure. Not on this hovel. Anyway, when were you going to tell me that you’re sleeping with the daughter of the biggest criminal in the universe? Oh! And the High Priestess. I am a little hung up on that one, too.”
A groan gurgled in Sulim’s throat. “Didn’t think it pertinent for you to know. Until now.”
Mira stepped up between them. “Totally not the point right now.”
“It’s a lot of points, all right?” The way Sonall fluttered his hand up from his crossed arms and toward her face impressed even Sulim, who didn’t think he had picked up one of her own finer blow-offs over the years.
“This whole time, someone has been cozying up to one of the most valuable people in the universe. Damn, Sulim, you have high-class tastes.”
“Don’t gas yourself up like that.”
Before Sonall could ask what she meant by that, Mira said, “I need you both to tell me what my mother said to you. Now.” When Sonall, especially, remained reticent, she continued, “It’s sort of a difference between life and death, okay?”
Sulim cracked first, although she glossed over the more dreamlike aspects of the encounter.
Like no longer belonging to myself. Living a hundred different lives at once.
Seeing a panorama of “Sulims” that simultaneously existed across uncountable universes.
Instead, she focused on the presence itself—the warm, motherly hug, the soft voice, and the golden eyes that plainly spoke of a fate that she had been signed up for.
As if being abducted from her home planet, suffering as a junior mercenary, and seeing all the sorrow that she had in this place made up for her soul being a chosen one.
“She told me that my purpose was to help you,” Sulim said.
“Now, I would have liked a little say in the matter, but I am but a lowly human in the macrocosm of existence. If the High Priestess comes to me and says, ‘Hey, that chick you’re into these past few years? That’s my daughter, and you were chosen specifically to be her soulmate.’”
“Whoa,” Sonall said.
Mira’s shoulders slumped back as she relaxed her posture. “She told you that?”
“I mean… that was the gist I got. Why? Did you know?”
“Yes. Only because I brought that knowledge from the other… macrocosm of existence.”
“This night gets better,” Sonall interrupted. “Not only is she the daughter of Nerilis Dunsman and the High Priestess, but she’s your soulmate.”
“Yeah.” Sulim looked Mira in the soft, brown eyes when she said. “She is.”
“Peachy. Where’s mine?”
Mira did a double-take in his direction. “Wait, what did my mother say to you?” she asked after a defeated beat.
While she and Sonall stared at one another for a moment, Sulim had the sudden realization that Mira was her soulmate.
Her heart was confused enough to forget everything else pressing upon them; her mind struggled to remember why they were even there.
Only the existence of a soulmate remained within Sulim’s construct of reality. Well, shit.
“Basically the same thing as her,” Sonall finally confessed. “Minus the soulmate nugget. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“I’d rather not think about it.” Mira sighed, releasing whatever crazy tension must have been stored up within her. “Okay. Well, we’ve got a problem. It has come to my attention that my father is, uh…”
“Crazy?” Sonall supplied. Sulim smacked his arm.
“Sure. Let’s go with ‘crazy,’” Mira said. “Crazy enough to make Cerilyn his next target.”
“You mean…”
“He’s gonna…”
“Yup. Daddy dearest has moved on to the next phase of his batshit plan.” Mira bit her lip before blowing air past it. “Genocide.”
Sulim cut her partner off before he said what she knew cooked in his brain, which had suffered multiple concussions in his career already. “Please tell me that doesn’t run in your veins.” It was the last thing any of them needed to hear right now.
“What do we do to stop him?” she asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out right now,” Mira said.
“My close friend Master Marlow is here because nobody alive knows my father better than him. He’s the one who tipped me off. Also…”
She inhaled a deep breath. “If what Ram says is true, we’re looking at some crazy metaphysical shit about to go down. We’ll have to enlist the help of all of Second Tribe. Do you think I could meet with your chief anytime soon?”
Sonall sucked his breath through his teeth; Sulim’s hands slipped off her hips. “That might be difficult,” she said. “Olma is kind of in a comatose state right now.”
“Oh. Great. Lovely. What caused that?”
“We have no idea. Things are a little wild in the fortress.”
“Does this mean you two won’t be missed tomorrow if you’re here helping us figure things out all day?”
“I don’t have any plans,” Sulim said. “Do you?”
Sonall looked at her as if to say, “Don’t insult me, please.”
Of course he had no plans. Her work plans were his work plans at this point in their careers.